Saco River Covered Bridge Conway
— — white pine, hand-pegged, still holding the road.
Not only on a wall.
“The Saco River Covered Bridge sits at the south end of Conway village, carrying a single lane across water that drops out of the Presidential Range. Painted white pine, Paddleford truss with Burr arch reinforcement — the kind New Englanders rebuilt every generation until they stopped rebuilding them. From a distance it reads as a small piece of structural faith, still in daily service.
Saco River Covered Bridge Conway, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Saco River Covered Bridge stands at the south edge of Conway village in Carroll County, New Hampshire, carrying Washington Street across the Saco River as it leaves the Presidential Range. Built in 1890 by Charles Broughton and his son Frank, the bridge runs about 225 feet on a Paddleford truss reinforced with Burr arches, a design unique to northern New England. The Saco rises near Crawford Notch and runs 136 miles to the Atlantic at Saco, Maine. The bridge remains in service to local traffic and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Saco valley turns first. By the last week of September, the maples along the riverbank above Conway begin to redden; by mid-October the bridge sits inside a wall of orange and yellow that photographers drive up from Boston for. Mount Washington, 25 miles north, often carries its first snow by the time the leaves are at peak in the valley below. The window is short. A hard rain or a wind off the Presidentials can strip the colour in a single afternoon. From the studio, this is the bridge's signature week.
The bridge is on Washington Street in Conway, just off NH Route 16, and remains open to passenger vehicles on a single lane with a posted weight limit. There is no fee. A small pull-off on the east approach allows photographs without standing in the roadway. The Conway Scenic Railroad station is half a mile north; North Conway village, with its outlet shops and the trailheads for Cathedral Ledge and Diana's Baths, is six miles up Route 16. The Swift River Covered Bridge sits about a mile south at the confluence.